Friday, April 24, 2009

Thursday, April 23, 2009

It is finally warm! We went out and played and of course I took pictures. Hannah was the most willing to hang out with me and play. The others ran and ran and ran. It is supposed to get cold again this weekend, so I am glad we got to play in the sun for a bit.

Yeah, this is why there aren't lots of pictures of these two together. They are each other's best friends, but they also pick on each other mercilessly.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

One of the kids got my point and shoot and was playing with it. (I really don't know which.) They took it into the bathroom. By the time I found it, it had aparantly been dropped in the tub and retrieved and put on the counter. Most of the water had drained out, but the lens did have some water sitting in the bottom.

When I picked it up, it kept slowly leaking water.

So I took out the battery and the memory card and put everything into a bucket of rice (we have a bucket the kids play in) and left it there for over a week.

When I pulled it back out and put it back together, it worked like a charm.

We went to the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum with the kids. We spent about 5 hours inside playing. Mom and Dad were absolutely exhausted by the end of the day.

Michael ran from exhibit to exhibit. At first we tried to keep him in the sightline the entire time, but that became absolutely impossible and we gave him a little leeway to do his own thing, checking in on him every 20 minutes or so, and he did really well. I was VERY impressed with his ability to be deferential and sharing with others. He certainly did me proud. It was not the order of the day with lots of the kids, so I was very impressed that he kept his head and manners, even when others around him were not.

Hannah also ran off and played with little friends she met along the way. We also kept an eye on her, but it was pretty easy. She stayed in the little playhouse, grocery store, farm, and water area almost exclusively. She was extremely social and made so many little new friends all day long.

Garrett and McKay proved to be a little more tricky to contain. They were the ones we followed and kept close tabs on. (McKay kept wanting to go into the gift shop to play. He was having a hard time drawing a line with what toys were there to be played with and which were there to be purchased.) This will also explain why most of the pictures are of those two and Ella. Ella was content to be carried around and then play with whatever the others were playing with.

Overall, it was a very fun afternoon and the kids did a great job of playing nicely within boundries with a little bit of independence.

McKay LOVED this ball area. Especially this little lift system. He always came back here. He would venture to visit the other exhibits, but he would check back over and over.

Ella just happily played with whatever the other kids were interested in, and didn't complain when it was time to move on.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

We went to visit the Cabella's aquarium. McKay had been dying to go visit "the cave," as he calls it. Grandma Rehart came with us and we spent a good couple hours looking around. The kids really enjoyed it all. McKay was just entralled with the fish.

It was so much fun. On the way home, Garrett declared, "Our grandma is a good grandma." I wholeheartedly agree.

It's hard to tell in the above pic, but if you look closely you can see Mckay looking at the fish eagerly, and the fish looking back at McKay just as interestedly. There was always a whole bunch of fish regarding McKay with interest.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Ella has this little problem. Her feet and ankles are rather skinny, so all of she shoes slip off except the Robeez shoes. Even the Robeez shoes can be pulled off pretty easily, which is no mean feat.

As a result, Ella constantly is missing one shoe. Sometimes we find it again, sometimes we don't. We frequent Target's infant shoe aisle quite often.

But then I stopped and pondered on the "one shoe" antics of my littlest sweetie, and really...I should have seen this coming. The only way it would have been more obvious that she would have this proclivity would have been if her MIDDLE name was Ella and her first name was Cinder. ;)

Saturday, April 11, 2009

In Michael's class they have 5 stars that they get at the beginning of the day. They lose a star if the don't listen, wander off, or disobey any other class rules. If they have a star at the end of the day, they get to participate in the Super Surprise--which is a fun motivator and reward for good behavior.

Well, for the 3rd term, Michael kept every. single. star. ALL TERM LONG. He never even lost one.

And poor Hannah got sick over the weekend and then Ella got sick on Sunday and Monday. I really hope this darn winter is done and we can all go back to being healthy. I think Ella has been sick enough. She catches everything the kids bring home, and with 4 siblings bringing stuff home, she's had a lot to catch. (Plus she makes every cold more dramatic by turning it into an ear infection.)

Friday, April 3, 2009

So I planned to get more pictures. These were just as we were getting Hannah ready and waiting for Darwin to come home. But, sadly, things just went crazy around this time. Garrett's been a little sick and was very whiny and sad around this time. Ella was fussy and crying and McKay kept wanting to run away to "the cave" (we've yet to find out what that is) and so soon extra time for pictures dissolved into just rushing Darwin and Hannah out the door to the dance at the school a couple minutes late.

Hannah really has been looking forward to the dance. She's been asking for weeks.

She loved dressing up.

She always loves posing for pictures.

Quite the cutie, no?

Waiting for dad...

Where could he be?

Never fear, he came along shortly after this. They had a great time and Hannah enjoyed herself quite a lot.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

I didn't think they would teach him to say a weird name, per se. They are totally humorous, but they really would not teach him something WRONG just to be funny. But since it was April Fools' Day I thought perhaps they were supplying him with a cute April Fools' joke.